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Harvard Extension School

Hi,
I was wondering if there are any students who attends HES? I might apply to the school if my transfer application to Penn is rejected. Any comments about the school would be very helpful. Thanks!!!

Hi Brandon,
In case my application for Penn CGS is rejected, I would apply to the Harvard Extension School as a ABL(or Bac. of Liberal Arts). Also, do you have the opportunity to participate in the Special Student Program with allows you to enroll up to two classes per term at Harvard College?

Aside from that, my main concern is housing. Is it tough to get a housing option? I certainly need a place to stay since I'm out of state.

Somebody with a handle "redlinekid" probably already knows this, but here it is for general consumption as well.

I might apply to the [Harvard Extension] school if my transfer application to Penn is rejected.

Harvard Extension has very little in common with Harvard or Penn for that matter (I assume you mean UPenn not PSU). There is almost no overlap of faculty, classes, or students. Academically, in prestige and in every other sense it would be a huge step down from UPenn going to HES. While many HES graduates try to fudge their accomplishment by claiming a degree from "Harvard", anybody familiar with the institution would laugh at this and immediately detect the fraud. Many people (i.e., employers) in the geographic vicinity of Harvard will also be familiar with the difference.

In other words, be careful if you are hoping to use HES as a kind of Harvard degree lite. As an adult ed degree, professional development or part of a program to get into grad school elsewhere, it can be worthwhile, but don't be fooled by the Harvard marketing literature.

While your opinion is obviously merited and accepted, there are lots of valuable resources at Extension and personally, you're overall disregard for the program is your own viewpoint and I accept that as your right. My School is a part of the overall University and we are working on developing different ways to make our school better in both academics and course offerings. Currently there are courses which are available to both College and Extension Undergrads and the feeling is that things are becoming more developed and Extension students have access to many things now: research(Honors Research programs, thesis ability, Library and Proquest, faculty aide/TF abilities), Employment opportunities(referral services and Office of Career Services), and last but not least Harvard Alumni Association and Harvard College affiliations(the HAA, HEAA, and Special Students Status with house recognition).

Moreover, regarding the bridge from Undergrad to Grad, I appreciate the comment in regards to the U to Grad aspect. We have an awesome preperation for that portion. Believe me the people here are very dedicated and know what they want in life. I want to go to Medical School and possibly become a professor in medicine after some years as a Doc in a clinical aspect. I used to want business but I had my hand at that as I've been working and going to school at the same time and I don't find it to be my fancy. Well, I just wanted to say thanks and give the E. School students some credit, we're due it dude.

HES and Harvard College degree are both real Harvard Undergraduate degree.

But they are very different degrees, with almost no overlap in coursework, faculty, or admission standards. The vast majority of HES students and alumni that I have met present their Harvard affiliation misleadingly (they "study at Harvard", have a "bachelor's from Harvard", etc) in a way meant to fudge the difference. Some go further and lie outright, claiming a degree or coursework, on their resumes, from "Harvard University", rather than stating HES.

re: the statement that "HES alumni have been admitted to Harvard PhD, HMS, YLS, ...", the admissions rate of people into those programs who have only HES degrees (not an HES master's certificate on top of an existing bachelor's degree) is extremely small compared to the admissions rate of students with a Harvard College AB. The graduate schools at Harvard, Yale and most other institutions know quite well the difference between the two degrees.

there are lots of valuable resources at Extension and personally, you're overall disregard for the program is your own viewpoint

Well, I made factual statements and did not express an opinion on HES as such, much less show "disregard". If the facts I stated are incorrect or paint an inaccurate picture of HES, a correction would of course be welcome.

My opinion is that HES is a fine thing that serves many purposes for its students, faculty and institution. That does not change the fact that HES is very different from Harvard College or Harvard GSAS, a difference that HES carefully avoids in its marketing literature, but is nonetheless well-known to anyone familiar with the institution. I don't think it serves anybody to praise the wonders of HES without making that difference clear; nobody should pay for an HES degree thinking they are getting an equivalent of what the general population understands as a "Harvard degree".

I suppose you're right that there is an obvious difference but one must also understand that if Harvard Extension did begin to change policies and started to develop the School in a manner which was a lot more academically based we could be considered more a part of Harvard University. Certain aspects are needing to be developed including high class academics, social scene, and alumni base. If these were developed more thant they are then wouldn't there be less of a difference between the view that the general population holds of a "Harvard degree" and that which HES provides? I really appreciate your opinions and I'm not trying to pick a fight. I just want to develop my School into something great not just for me but for all those who attend. I believe we deserve a lot of respect as most of us are holding down full time jobs and studying at the same time.

OMG. You are misleading everyone in this forum 100%. Your disdain for the Extension School is so evident, you do not even try to mask it.

First off, HES students CAN put on their CV that they received a Bachelors from Harvard University. They are not allowed to say that they received their Bachelors from Harvard COLLEGE. The proper way they wish for HES students to write it out on a resume is: ALB' 09 Economics, Harvard University.
The distinction is only made in the difference between AB and ALB. Only the Extension School offers an ALB and so it is proper for graduates to acknowledge that they received an ALB or an MLA from Harvard University.

Example:

How can I present the ALM on my resume?

Harvard University offers the following degrees in Extension Studies:
Associate in Arts
Bachelor of Liberal Arts
Master of Liberal Arts

It is acceptable, therefore, to list the ALM degree on your resume in the following manner:

Secondly, the best thing about the Extension School is that its a work your way up program. You start at the bottom and gain entry as a special student into Harvard College and are designated a College. You have access to career services, libraries, clubs, organization, non-Ivy athletics such as club sports, pretty much everything except live in the dorms. Its a solid program for non-traditional students. Its NOT a substitute for the COLLEGE but its no University of Phoenix.

Last, before you continue making a fool out of yourself on this thread, you should look at most of the past Alumni bulletins. A lot of HES grads go on to top schools. Georgetown Law, NYU Law, Harvard Law, UC Berkeley MBA, MIT Comupter Science, Brown PhD, Carnegie Mellon MBA, Columbia PhD, and on and on. It's not just a "small" number.

Brandon, you need to do a little more research about your own school, before you consent to most of the misinformation siserune is spewing on here. He is all talk and no substance. He is another example of uber-elitist know nothings who exhibit too much bark and no bite. It’s guys like him that spread dishonest information about HES and continue to give it a bad rep. Granted the administration itself should do WAY more to improve the image of HES because it continually fails to mention all the opportunities offered to prospects until they’re in the program themselves. This lack of communication seems to create all sorts of sordid tales and myths about HES that guys like siserune then proceed to spread on threads like this.

HES students CAN put on their CV that they received a Bachelors from Harvard University.

On a CV one can call the registrar to inquire. When HES affiliates discuss their status as "studying at Harvard" or "bachelor's at Harvard", that would certainly suggest to those not familiar with Harvard institutional trivia (which is most of the population, even in Boston) that the Harvard person went through the regular undergraduate or graduate selection hurdles. That would in fact be the single biggest piece of information that most people would extract from such a statement. Every HES student is well aware of that. Leaving it in the hands of the listener to find out the real story through clever suspicion or random chance is (usually, in the described situation) fudging the truth.

If somebody claims to have a degree from "Oxford" or "Cambridge University", which are (hypothetical) open-admission community colleges in obscure parts of the United States that the person in fact attended, and this person makes a point of introducing themselves in that way (not as a joke or conversation-piece), I think everyone would understand it as a deliberate distortion, even if technically correct.

Will the sky fall from this kind of stretched self-description? No. Are HES folk the only ones who do it? No. Do Harvard College students do the equivalent? Yes. Is the practice common among HES affiliates? Yes.

Harvard's policy is skating the line on this question. You can be sure that HES first bachelor's degree enrollment would drop enormously if Harvard required use of the words "Extension School" in the CV.

Last, before you continue making a fool out of yourself on this thread, you should look at most of the past Alumni bulletins. A lot of HES grads go on to top schools. Georgetown Law, NYU Law, Harvard Law, UC Berkeley MBA, MIT Comupter Science, Brown PhD, Carnegie Mellon MBA, Columbia PhD, and on and on. It's not just a "small" number.

There's the fudging: "HES grads". The overwhelming majority of HES grads who go to top programs already have bachelor's degrees before reaching HES; they are there for master's degrees or language study or pre-med courses that will enhance an existing degree. My statement specifically referred to the bachelor's degrees (and apparently also includes associate degrees, though I doubt those are recognized for graduate admission). You are welcome to show us how it is foolish, or in any way wrong:

re: the statement that "HES alumni have been admitted to Harvard PhD, HMS, YLS, ...", the admissions rate of people into those programs who have only HES degrees (not an HES master's certificate on top of an existing bachelor's degree) is extremely small compared to the admissions rate of students with a Harvard College AB.

Look at the way you describe HES. As an open admissions community college? The degree programs have a formal admissions process. Why do you make it seem as if HES is so seperate from Harvard University. It is not. It is seperate from Harvard College. It is part of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. What part of this are you not getting? It is mainly opinion and a myriad of misconceptions that you are working on here. Even getting into Harvard College through the Special Student Program requires a pretty rigourous process.
The fact that you compare it to a community college not affiliated with the university is absurd. A student who went through the admissions process and earned degree candidacy can say without "fudging the truth", that he attends Harvard University. If he attains special student status and attends classes at Harvard College, doing the same coursework as a traditional student, he can properly say that he attends Harvard College.
All you are doing siserune is demeaning the work of the students at HES. Offer some proof. I have yet to see you offer any proof. You're just all talk without offering anthing to back up your bark.
The Extension School know that students do not have to put Extension School on their resume just like some Harvard grads do not specify Harvard College or that they got their MA in Harvard Grad School. Harvard University is just fine.

There's the fudging: "HES grads". The overwhelming majority of HES grads who go to top programs already have bachelor's degrees before reaching HES; they are there for master's degrees or language study or pre-med courses that will enhance an existing degree. My statement specifically referred to the bachelor's degrees (and apparently also includes associate degrees, though I doubt those are recognized for graduate admission). You are welcome to show us how it is foolish, or in any way wrong:

Where is this proof? Show me. Because I will show you some examples of people without a BA who went on to some top programs:

The list goes on and I can keep going but it would fill an entire post. I would just hope that you get the picture instead of spreading more falsehoods. The biggest thing that HES has to offer is its record of placing ALB grads into top grad schools. Yes, grads without a BA or BS from another school.

Look at the way you describe HES. As an open admissions community college?

That's false. I did not "describe HES as an open-admissions community college", as can be easily verified above.

It should be obvious what the relevance is of the story about an imaginary, obscure and unselective college sharing a name with Oxford. This issue comes up in trademark disputes all the time. e.g., Congress passed a law a few years ago called the "Made in USA Label Defense Act" to prevent Chinese-manufactured textiles from being sold as Made In USA by import through Saipan.

Harvard, in fact, has an office that enforces its brand by (for example) suing enterprises that use the word Harvard prominently in their name, as in:

Your example of the MIT PhD if anything makes the opposite of your point.
Her CV reveals that she was an MIT undergraduate in computer science for 2 years, and "gave the valedictory address" at her high school, which is an elite private girls' school near Boston. Then she was a teaching assistant in the Harvard CS department. Apparently at this point she signed up for Extension Courses (there is a tuition discount for employees). She is also a black woman, which is a highly recruited admissions category for hard science PhD's at MIT.

In other words, she already had quite a few things driving her admission to MIT that were in place before she ever set foot in the HES. HES may have been a formality that she needed, or a way to reintegrate into the system. But to make your point you would need examples of people who are admitted to selective graduate programs entirely on their HES credentials, not use HES as an addition to other factors that already make most of the case for admission.

It looks like the woman from HES who went to MIT has an even stronger pre-HES resume than I described above. She spent a year at MIT Artificial Intelligence lab (at that time basically the world center of computer science) after the first 2 years at MIT, then spent 10 years founding and running a company that developed and sold various computer technologies.

The point is, she had an awesome CV of the kind that would have gotten her into most graduate programs -- a record that would have been the envy of many Harvard College or MIT graduates -- prior to her association with the Extension School. Her ALB thesis advisors were a computer science instructor at the extension school (who is not on the Harvard CS faculty), and a professor at MIT, which suggests that she kept her connections to MIT before returning there. Not exactly a typical admissions pattern for the Extension School.

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